Violent Racism Attracts New Breed: Skinheads

By WAYNE KING

Published: January 1, 1989

There are four of them, and they dress in a manner best described as bristling: hair close-cropped, heavy boots with trousers bloused, black leather jackets and epaulets. They wear ties, and the look is neat, but a little Germanic, circa 1939. Two have earrings, but they say that is not part of the look, the skinhead look.

The four are bright, serious, anti-drug, anti-gay, anti-communist and militantly pro-American, and they are part of New York's small but apparently growing skinhead population. Denizens of the streets and clubs of the East Village, devotees of a militantly working-class music called ''Oi!,'' they represent a disparate, rebellious appendage of the ever-evolving youth subculture.

So far, New York's skinheads have cultivated the style of violence far more than its substance. Still, a growing list of skinhead attacks throughout the nation points up the danger in the skinheads' belief in violence as a way of life.

Skinheads have joined forces with old-line racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and newer neo-Nazi groups in a score of states and have been charged with racist violence, including beatings, stabbings and three killings, in California, Florida and Oregon. New York Incident

There are estimated to be several hundred skinheads in New York City -the four interviewed anonymously put the number at about 800 - but the great majority are neither racist nor neo-Nazi, according to police officials, civil rights groups and skinheads themselves.

Indeed, the only reported incident of racial violence involving skinheads in New York City came last month, when four skinheads from Philadelphia and New Jersey attacked a white couple with an infant son in a PATH station in Manhattan.

Likewise, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith says there are thousands of skinheads nationwide, but only about 2,500 actively racist skinheads, concentrated in 21 states.

But there is general agreement that the skinhead youth culture forms a fertile ground for recruiting by racist and anti-Semitic groups.

Such recruiting is being done by the Klan and neo-Nazi organizations like the California-based White Aryan Resistance, which has been organizing skinheads into racist cadres, called War Skins, on the West Coast and elsewhere. 'They're Violent'

White Aryan Resistance is led by a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, Tom Metzger, whose 20-year-old son, John, seeks to snare skinheads into the racist movement through his own organization, the Aryan Youth Movement.

''It is the one segment of the white racist movement in America that is growing,'' said Irwin Suall, fact-finding director of the Anti-Defamation League, the leading agency monitoring the rapid growth of racist skinhead groups across the country. ''They're not only young; they're violent.''

And he cautioned: ''New York does not have a fence around it. There is no reason to believe New York is going to be immune to the racist variety of skinheadism.''

Even avowedly nonracist skinheads in New York - some of whom are organized into groups like SHARP -Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice -concede that the racist appeal can be effective. 'It Can Become White Pride'

''Skinheads have an intense feeling about whatever it is they believe in,'' said a 15-year-old Irish-American skinhead in New York who says racism is ''un-American, and skinheads are pro-America.''

''So someone who is not sure about his beliefs, you instill that pride in them, it's easy to convert to racism. Pride for yourself, it can become white pride.''

They proclaim a belief in violence as a way of life and concede that the usually steel-toed English workboots they affect - Dr. Martens brand - represent more than a fashion statement.

''The reason Dr. Martens come into this,'' said a 15-year-old skinhead who disavows any racism, ''is they're really comfortable boots, they're easy to work in, they have air holes, they're really bendable.'' British Phenomenon

And, said his brush-cut companion, ''you can kick the hell out of people.''

''To say we are not violent would be a lie, O.K.,'' said the first youngster, who is Jewish.

The American skinhead movement grows out of a British phenomenon of the late 60's and early 70's in which white working-class London youth, angry and xenophobic, rebelled against society in general, while some blamed an influx of blacks and other minority group members for an impending bleak future.

Some began to shave their heads in defiance of ''long-haired hippyism,'' and, for some, the movement began to take on a fascist overlay, fed eventually by blatantly racist ''white power'' bands like Skrewdriver and No Remorse.

The movement found its way to America, with ''American skins'' affecting the British workboots, cropped hair or shaved heads, braces and bloused trousers. 'Major Thing Is Anger'

Their music, a major unifying factor, ranges from a nonracist brand of Cockney rock called ''Oi!'' (a Cockney greeting), reflecting working-class unity and rebellion, to racist ''white power'' music typified by Skrewdriver, whose repertory includes such titles as ''Race and Nation'' and ''White Power.''

''Their major thing is anger,'' said Gary Lustgarten, a proprietor of Pyramid, an East Village cabaret at Tompkins Square that has some skinhead clientele and occasionally books bands that appeal to the ''skins,'' as they are often called. ''They feel something is owed them they never received, but they don't want to get it from their parents or from the Government. They're angry, their music reflects that.''

The anger is a generalized anti-establishment emotion. But in addition to the discontent of what skinheads like to describe as ''working class youth,'' there are some well-established conservative phobias. ''We hate Jane Fonda,'' one young skinhead said.

War Zone and other skinhead bands also perform at CBGB, another Lower East Side club, often at Sunday matinees that attract younger ''skins'' in their mid-teens.

Venus, a Manhattan record store that stocks ''Oi!'' and other music that appeals to skinheads, carries albums by perhaps 50 skinhead-oriented bands, British and American. American groups have names like Youth Defence League, the Kicker Boys, Bootboys and Immoral Discipline. There are song titles like ''Strong Free Nation,'' ''American Heritage,'' ''I Hate Hippies'' and ''Boots and Braces, Stars and Stripes.''

The militance of the music, said a skinhead, reflects a belief in ''positive violence'' and ''the fact that we appreciate America.''